


Line Without A Hook

by why_am_i_doing_this_again



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Manipulation, Explosions, Gaslighting, Gay, Gay Panic, How Do I Tag, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, abuse mention, canon is a jenga tower and i am a three year old, groping but very little, like its the sauna scene, oscar gets a boyfriend, the opposite of slow burn, this takes like 9 days
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:00:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28439517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/why_am_i_doing_this_again/pseuds/why_am_i_doing_this_again
Summary: ??? idk how summaries work?? Oscar x male oc???? Tony canNOT catch a break istg
Relationships: Oscar (Umbrella Academy)/Original Male Character(s), himbo x himbo - Relationship
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	1. Blue Margaritas and Fascist Goldfish

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: im failing history!! stuff will probably be historically inaccurate!! ALSO i have NO idea how the ao3 tagging system works, so ill just put warnings before each chapter. this fic is VERY self-indulgent. also apparently the formats off i guess writing mainly on your phone looks weird. !! i am aromantic and i have never written romance before!! so the romance part will be a little,, off!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: violence, choking (the unsexy kind), alcohol, AJ Carmichael, one (1) death

_November 15, 1963_

_Dallas, Texas, The Black Dahlia_

_Friday, 7:31 pm, after sunset_

  
  
  


The Black Dahlia was a high-end nightclub, a place where only rich, old, white men were expected to be. The guy weaving his way through the crowd was _not_ one of those. He was pretty young; 25 years old, baby-faced and short. And he was a _mess_. With his choppy, messy black hair, slightly grimy face, and bruised knuckles, you wouldn’t expect him to be able to step foot within 20 feet of this place. He wasn’t supposed to be in here, and he knew it, what with the way he kept running into chairs and the corners of tables. 

Every bit the greaser he was, he was wearing a light denim jacket with the collar flipped up, held together with safety pins, and decorated with patches of wildflowers. A small blue name tag proclaimed him to be Tony Valdez. He was wearing a dark silver chain necklace, and 2 thick silver rings on his right hand. His jeans were splattered with mud, and, if you took a closer look, you could see the dark dried bloodstains. They were tucked into equally dirty steel-toed combat boots. 

He hadn’t been getting much sleep. The bags under his eyes bled into his black eyeshadow. 

He seemed a little on edge, observant, _paranoid_ . If you had asked him what were the favourite drinks of the 4 people 2 tables from the door, he would have answered. _Correctly._

What he didn’t notice though, through the crowd of people, were the three blond men who had been stalking him for the last 2 hours.

**. . .**

As Tony sat down at the bar and ordered a blue margarita, the three blonds sat down at a table well out of his field of vision. A brunet man sat down next to him at the bar, very much _in_ his field of vision. 

“What’s a guy like you doing here?” he asked, vaguely directed at Tony. “You know, bars like this can be a little rough, especially to boys like _you_.” 

Tony was not paying attention. He was absently sipping his margarita and occasionally glancing in the mirror behind the bar. He knew someone was looking for him, and he knew why, but he didn’t know _who_.

The guy sitting next to him (who Tony had learned was named Mark) had been trying to get his attention and put down his drink for roughly 10 minutes when Tony abruptly stood up.

“I need to go.” he whispered to himself. Something was wrong.

“What, you’re just gonna leave me? How about-” Mark started to protest.

“Shut up.” Tony said absent-mindedly. _I don’t even know you_.

He chugged down the last few drops of the obnoxiously bright margarita and started to head to the door, passing the 3 blond guys who were speaking in _swedish_. Hearing this, Tony skidded to a halt for a moment before continuing to run outside.

Outside, it was a clear night. He tore off his name tag and shoved it in his pocket, before running into an alley in the opposite direction. He hid underneath a balcony. As the seconds went by, he got more and more paranoid. With good reason.

“What are you doing here?”

Tony nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Goddamnit Mark! What the hell do you want?” he yelled, pulling his jacket tighter around himself.

“Jeez, man. Chill out. Why are you so on edge?” Mark asked. He was obviously oblivious to the terrified look on Tony’s face.

“Just, leave! Please! You’ll get hurt! I can’t explain right now, but you need to leave. _Now._ ” Tony exclaimed, trying to ward off this guy he barely knew.

It was no use. A gunshot rang out, and Mark fell forward, dead.

The three blond guys from inside stood at the entrance of the alley The shortest one of them was holding a shotgun. That was still pointed at Tony.

It took him a few seconds to react. He ran to the other end of the alley and rounded the corner without looking back.

The Swedes ran faster than him. That was obvious, since their legs were longer than his. Knowing this, Tony’s first instinct was to climb up the sheer brick walls of the alley, but he didn’t. Because they had at least one gun. So he did what any normal person would do, and started panicking. 

He kept running. It was like they were everywhere. Everywhere he ran, he either ran into one of _them_ , or a dead end. There was no way he could outrun them, so he found a secluded alleyway, filled with dumpsters and lots of places to hide. He ran to the end, threw himself behind a dumpster, and waited.

It didn’t take long. Eventually he heard a set of footsteps. _Three_ sets of footsteps. _Fuck._

His heart jumped into his throat. Everything was so quiet, he swore he could hear someone’s breathing. Suddenly, a man was in front of him*. Tony panicked and punched in the vague direction of his face and tried to dash around him. 

And, he almost made it! 

_Almost._

Another guy’s arm wrapped around his throat, slowly but surely crushing his windpipe. Tony had gotten out of situations like these before, and with the way he was struggling and thrashing, he almost escaped. But the third swede was still there.

The moment his fist connected with his mouth, Tony knew it was over. Pain exploded in his lips and he recognized the metallic taste of blood. The pain and loss of oxygen was disorienting him too much.

He sunk his nails into the forearm around his neck in a last-ditch effort not to faint, but it didn’t work. The last thing he saw before he blacked out, was a large blue and white milk van.

**. . .**

Tony woke up in a well-furnished room, with dark wood furniture and a deep green carpet. It would have almost been nice, if he hadn’t been handcuffed to a chair. His head was ringing, his headache making the room spin, and he could still taste blood in his mouth.

It took him a while to register the man, well, _fish,_ sitting at the desk in front of him. 

“AJ.” Tony spat out through the blood in his mouth.

“Agent Valdez.” said AJ smugly. “You’re a hard man to find. How long have you been here? 2 years? 4?”

“6.” corrected Tony ruefully. “Since 1957.”

“Ah. Well. Do you have any _idea_ how much trouble you’ve caused the commission? One of the most, uh, _knowledgeable_ , agents going rogue? I’ve never seen the Handler so _angry_.” AJ mused. 

“Well, it’s not exactly _my_ fault! She just-”

“I know.” AJ cut off Tony’s rant. “I know what she did. I also don’t care. Listen, perhaps we can come to an arrangement? It would be a shame to kill _you_.”

“So why did you kidnap me?” This conversation was _not_ helping Tony’s headache.

“We knew you wouldn’t come of your own will, so I had them, uh, _retrieve_ you. I hope you don’t mind. You see, you have two options. You can either come back and work for the commission. Behave yourself. Or, we could eliminate you entirely. Your choice.” AJ said smugly. If fish can even sound smug.

“AJ. Buddy. Pal. You know I would never come back. Where even are we? This isn’t any part of the commission I recognize.” Tony thought that changing the subject would help him. He was wrong.

“We are in the office of a man I think you know. Peter Giles? Ring any bells? I’ll leave you in here so you can think about this.” AJ stood up and let the door slam behind him with a clang that made Tony’s head ring.

Silence.

Here’s the thing. Tony was smart. He knew how to pick locks. In a couple of minutes, he had maneuvered one of the safety pins from his jacket to his hand. Then there was the problem of actually getting out. 

When AJ came back with the three swedish agents, they were met with a pair of unlocked handcuffs and a broken window. The chair and rogue agent were nowhere to be found.

“What should we do, sir?” said one of them.

AJ let out a long-suffering sigh. “Just, uh, I’ll take care of it. Consider this a paid vacation. You are excused.”

Meanwhile, Tony walked away from the building in a slight daze. Feeling freer than he had in a long time, he looked through the wallet he had managed to take from one of the mysterious swedish agents. Then he stalked off into the night, 100 dollars richer.

  
And he _laughed._


	2. Tony punches a moving train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oscar and Otto go to the mechanic :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: not many??, trains i guess, a little ✨fisticuffs✨, violence, the words in bold are in swedish, swearing
> 
> (im sorry this took sorta a long time)

_ November 16, 1963 _

_ Dallas, Texas,  _

_ Saturday morning _

Mornings were always rough. Oscar had woken up early to feed the cats, and then promptly fell back asleep on the couch. Otto was the most awake and alert out of them. And Axel?

Axel was  _ furious. _

__

He had gotten up at 7:30 to go to a diner. Everything had gone fine, no casualties, until he reached for his wallet to pay, only to find an empty pocket. 

He knew exactly who took his wallet, and he intended to find him and make him regret it.

5 miles away from him, Tony Valdez was waking up.

He had retired the night before to the old abandoned trainyard where he was currently living. The trainyard was wild and overgrown, with trees growing through the tracks and ivy growing around the trains. He had found a train with broken axles that hadn't moved in decades and made it habitable. An old, stray cat lived in the trainyard and chased out most of the rats and mice. Tony had named this cat Heidi.

After stumbling out of his train car at 8:30 in the morning, he was off to work.

**. . .**

Meanwhile, Axel’s brothers were visiting the mechanic, because the engine of their van had started making weird clunking noises. Oscar and Otto had drawn straws to see who had to actually  _ talk _ to people, and Otto ultimately lost. As they were nearing the garage, Oscar saw something that made his heart jump.

_ Tony _ was sitting on a table by the entrance, talking to a girl. And he looked almost  _ unscathed _ . The only evidence of last night was a slightly swollen lip. He seemed shorter now in broad daylight. He had warm walnut skin covered in freckles. His shaggy, dark hair was mussed over an open, likable, now-clean face. He was wearing a yellow tank top smeared with oil and grease. His smile seemed  _ way _ too bright for someone who could’ve  _ died _ the day before.

While he was laughing at something the girl had said, Tony spotted the two brothers and his smile wavered. He excused himself.

“Hi! What can I do for y’all today?” He asked brightly. His smile seemed a little strained now.

“What are you doing here?” Oscar blurted out.

“Oh? I, uh, work here? I’m a mechanic.” Tony seemed to have relaxed a bit, knowing they hadn’t come there specifically to kill him. “So what’s up?”

Otto looked helplessly at Oscar, who seemed  _ very  _ reluctant to talk now.

“Oh, err, I don’t speak English that good. Um, sorry” Otto stammered in a thick Swedish accent.

“Oh no, that’s fine! Take your time!” Tony hopped back up on the table, letting his legs dangle.

While his brother was telling Tony what was wrong with their van, Oscar was busy looking not-so-subtly at Tony, unconsciously taking in every detail. He was definitely  _ not _ skinny, with his thick arms and muscular shoulders. Working as a mechanic must’ve made him  _ real  _ strong. His hair was  _ dark brown, _ not black. He had freckles on his  _ shoulders _ . When he smiled, he flashed slightly pointy canines. Oscar noticed a black and white tattoo of a bouquet of flowers on his left wrist, and smaller tattoos on his fingers.   
  
“So who are you guys anyway?” Tony asked

“We’re Commission agents. I thought you knew that already?” Otto answered curiously.

“No, I mean, what are your names? I’d hate to be killed by people I don’t know.” Tony corrected lightly.

“Huh. My name is Otto, his name is Oscar, and our other brother, Axel, isn’t here.” Otto chuckled wryly.

_ Oh? Oscar? _

“Okie dokie! Your van should be done by tomorrow morning! Y’all can come back then and pick it up.” said Tony, then mentally cursed himself.  _ Who the hell says okie dokie? _

As Oscar let Otto steer him back home, he couldn't help but hope to see Tony again.

They got back to their house, where Axel was pacing furiously, waiting for them.

“ **Woah, calm down! You’re scaring the cats!** ” Oscar’s mood changed from vaguely dazed to slightly concerned very quickly.

“ **I’m going to find him. And I’m going to wring his neck.** ” Axel growled at him.   
  


“ **Who’s he? And why?** ”

He told them about his wallet. Oscar thought it was  _ hilarious _ .   
  
“ **He took your wallet?** ” He asked incredulously.

Axel nodded stiffly.

“ **And you didn’t notice until now?** ” Oscar continued gleefully “ **I** **_really_ ** **need to meet this guy properly.** ”   
  
Otto cleared his throat. “ **Axel, you’ll never guess who we met at the mechanic’s.** ”

**. . .**

The sun was going down, glinting off of car windshields and turning everything blue. Tony was just working on an undercarriage after hours when he became painfully aware of another presence in the garage.

“Shop’s closed. Come back in the morning, please.”

When he heard no reply, he started to worry.

Tony rolled himself out from under the car. He was met with the familiar faces of the three Swedish assassins.

“Hi!” He exclaimed. “Can I help you?”

The shortest one cocked his shotgun

Tony thought fast. He grabbed the undercarriage and pulled, sending him and the creeper shooting forward. He barreled headfirst under several cars before he stood up.

The parking lot was empty. There was nothing nearby that he could use as a weapon. His head swiveled around trying to spot the assassins. He couldn’t see  _ anything _ move which just scared him more. Everything was quiet. Too quiet.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the glint off the barrel of a shotgun. He  _ bolted _ . He ran across the parking lot, weaving between the cars. At the end of the parking lot, there was a big chain-link fence. Bullets whizzed past Tony’s head as he heaved himself over.

He hit the ground running and hurled himself down an alley with the assassins at his heels. The garage wasn’t that far from his train. He could  _ probably  _ lose them in the surrounding forest. 

_ Divide and conquer. _

Tony reached his first dead end a few feet before Oscar.

“Hiya handsome. Please don’t shoot me.” Tony was pretty good at hiding his fear. Oscar just smirked.   
  


He was the only one out of his brothers who brought a gun, but it wasn’t much use in such close quarters. They wrestled for the shotgun. It was a relatively well-matched fight, Tony was just shorter and more tired. Oscar landed one good hit to his chest with the butt of his gun, hitting his head on the pavement.

Tony was on his back.  _ Unarmed. _ It would be  _ so  _ easy to put a bullet in his chest. But Oscar did something he hadn’t done in a very long time. He  _ hesitated _ .

Tony saw his chance and took it. He swept Oscar’s legs out from under him, and the gun clattered to the ground. He  _ could _ have taken the gun and shot Oscar.

**_But he hesitated too!_ **

Instead, he hit him in the temple, knocking him out cold.

“Sorry man. I’m gonna need these.” He unloaded the gun, took the bullets, and scampered off, a little dizzily.  _ 1 down, 2 to go _ .

Otto and Axel posed a different problem. They were working as a team. They were less reckless than Oscar. They were also taller, which Tony found unfair.   
  
_ Divide and conquer, divide and conquer. _

Tony had  _ one _ advantage. He’d lived in this part of Dallas for 6 years, and he knew it like the back of his hand. The Swedes had never been here. He saw them come towards him down an alleyway. They moved very stealthily for men their size. It was so quiet, Tony thought he could hear his own heartbeat.   
  
_ Ba-bump. Ba-bump. _

Slowly, the blood rushing in his ears, Tony picked up a tin can, and threw it as far away from him as possible. The assassins’ heads perked up like deer at the clattering sound. Axel quietly signalled to Otto to split up. Axel went one way, around the building, and Otto creeped on towards Tony. 

It was a game of cat and mouse at this point.  _ No, a wild goose chase, maybe. _

Tony knew all the abandoned buildings around these parts. He knew which ones had unlocked doors. Quiet as a mouse, he reached behind his back, and twisted a doorknob.

_ Ba-bump. Ba-bump. _

Otto’s head whipped around at the squeaking sound of the unoiled doorknob, but Tony was already hidden in the darkness in the building. It was dusty, and so dark that Tony couldn’t see the corners of the room. A thin thread of silver-blue moonlight streamed in through a boarded up window, glinting off a pair of brass knuckles on Otto’s hands.

_ Ba-bump ba-bump ba-bump ba-bump. _

Tony held back a sharp inhale. It finally hit him that the man he was currently hiding from in plain sight, could, no,  _ would _ , kill him with his bare hands. Fear pricked up his spine. He was crouched behind a crate, watching Otto creep further into the dark, his head on a swivel. Unable to believe that this was actually his plan, Tony gently unpinned one of his safety pins from his jacket and pressed it into his hand so hard it left a bruise. He got up from his crouch, pressing himself into the wall, and got ready to run.   
  
1 heartbeat. 2 heart beats.  _ Ba-bump. Ba-bump. _

He sprinted out the door, his feet barely making a sound. He slammed the door shut and jammed his safety pin in the lock. As he twisted his makeshift key in the lock, he jumped back.

And just in time! Otto had realized he’d been tricked. He slammed into the door like a battering ram, almost tearing it off its hinges.

“Look, man, like I told your brother. I’m sorry! You guys just keep following me!”

  
Tony scurried off, ignoring the loud crashes of the man’s fists against the old door.

Axel ran up to the door, rattling the doorknob. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tony trying to escape.   
  
“ **I’ll come back for you.** ” He told his brother before racing after the runaway thief.

Tony’s head was making everything spin. He must’ve taken a wrong turn, because soon he skidded to a halt in another dead end. Whirling around, he saw Axel advancing slowly, taking his time, cutting off the only exit. Tony was trapped.

“Why are you chasing me again?” He smiled nervously.

“Why did you take my wallet?” Axel countered in a Swedish accent.

“You know! To eat, and stuff.” He seemed less sure of himself now, and looked frantically for a way out. “It’s not really anything, y’know,  _ personal _ .”

Axel shrugged dismissively. “We’ve killed for less.” The two men had been eyeing each other warily for a while now, with neither of them making the first move. Tony had nowhere to go but up.

_ But up. _

He feinted right, and swung himself up a rickety, broken down fire escape, escaping to the roof of the building. The old, rusted metal creaked and groaned under his weight, and definitely wouldn’t hold up Axel. As soon as he stepped off the fragile metal and onto the roof, the shitty excuse for a fire escape shuddered and rent itself from the brick wall. Tony didn’t wait around for Axel to find another way up. He hurried over to the other side of the roof and was met with a long, sheer drop, and one more chain-link fence before the wilderness and greenery started. 

His head was making blank spots appear in his vision, so he stayed and caught his breath. The drop would definitely hurt. The building wasn’t high enough to kill him, but he might get too injured to outrun Axel. He heard two voices bark to each other in Swedish, followed by furious pounding on the surprisingly sturdy wooden door.  _ So he hadn’t broken out yet. Huh. _

Tony was, as you might have already realized, an idiot. He didn’t think “Oh they’re both distracted! I should run away while i still have the chance!”  _ no! _ By the time his bruised, battered, and probably concussed brain actually processed the last couple minutes, Axel had left his brother and was coming back after Tony.

_ Ba-bump. Ba-bump. _

Fear closed around his mind. He gave up entirely to instinct, and, throwing all caution to the wind, took a running leap off the edge of the building.

Against all possibility of success, he launched himself over the fence, and hit the grass running. As he disappeared into the forest, Axel wasn’t that far behind, having jumped the fence with superhuman agility. He was gaining ground fast.

They were both pretty far into the forest by the time Tony  _ really _ got tired. His mind was going a mile a minute. He weaved and dove between the trees, making sharp turns, trying to lose his pursuer. His lungs hurt. His arms stung where he got scratched by branches. And yet, he ran so fast his feet barely touched the ground.

Yes, Tony was fast. But Axel was faster. He only needed a couple more feet, a few more inches. He was so close, he could count how many breaths Tony was taking. He was within arms reach. Axel only needed to extend his arm and…

He leapt across some train tracks and disappeared behind the blur of a speeding train.

**. . .**

Otto had broken down the door just in time to yank his older brother back by his collar to avoid getting hit by a train. Tony had no such luck. Too focused on running away, the train behind him hadn’t fully registered. He expected Axel to still be after him. What he  _ didn’t _ expect was his fist connecting with 4,000 tons of speeding metal.

“Ow _ , FUCK. _ Shit, damnit, mother-” Tony let out an angry string of swears. His knuckles just barely nicked the train, but it was enough to throw him off-balance into the dust.

_ This train isn’t supposed to be moving what the  _ **_hell_ ** _ is this. _

A little confused, a little delirious, he sat up in the gravel. It was a  _ very _ long train. The end wasn’t in sight. No way around, through, or over. He was safe. 

Unable to believe his good luck, he laid back down, trying to calm his beating heart. He stayed there for around 15 minutes, slowing his breathing and listening to the clattering train.

Eventually, he stood up, brushed himself off, and went home.

That night, Tony’s dreams were plagued by a certain blond Swedish assassin.


End file.
